Pages

Friday, 22 May 2015

While chance and luck play a role in all TCGs, there is often a
debate as to whether some games have begun to favor luck rather than skill. If
a game requires no luck it becomes deterministic and predictable, punishing new
players and being unenjoyable for the audience. Likewise if luck is too
prevalent the randomness of results would discourage more experienced players
from participating, devaluing any concept of a competitive nature in the game.

In the game of Solforge
many players fall victim to the fallacy that luck plays a more important role
in their matches, and is the primary reason behind their losses. However the
weekly standings and win rates beg to differ. Top performing players manage to
keep fairly consistent win rates, suggesting the level of skill within the game
outweighs the effects of chance. The intent of this piece is to look at the
four main places in which probability and luck actually factor into Solforge:

Order of play

Draws

Chance-based card effects

Batch order sequencing

Comparing the aspects
behind luck in Solforge and other TCGs, such as Magic and Hearthstone, one
might be able to strike an ideal balance between luck and skill that players
can attempt to control, and game designers should strive to work around.
Remember, when you win it’s due to your skill, but when your opponents win they
just got lucky.

Tuesday, 12 May 2015

The Leyline cycle, a series of cards with the Ambush mechanic introduced in Reign of Varna, they allowed players to adjust their decks according to the metagame or shore up its weaknesses effectively with relatively minimal deckbuilding cost. In this article, I'll be analysing the various Leylines in detail, alongside the how and when of deckbuilding with them.